Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3)

by Melissa McPhail

  “Desperate times, desperate measures?” Franco inquired of him tightly.

  “Desperate mistakes,” Björn murmured. He gave Raine a pensive look. “But you’re right…perhaps it is time for the world to have the truth of the Citadel’s fall.”

  “Which is what exactly?” Carian asked.

  Björn looked to Franco. “Perhaps you would prefer to tell him?”

  Upon this inquiry, Franco felt something release in his mind—like the sudden snap of a lace too tightly bound—and a flood of words fell upon his tongue. His eyes widened while his mind rejected comprehension.

  Had Björn really just released the truthbinding of his treason on Tiern’aval?

  “Well?” Carian flicked at his chair arm impatiently.

  Franco’s heart beat a rapid rhythm of disbelief. He stared at his knees while his tongue attempted to work some moisture back into his mouth. After all this time—centuries of bearing the burden of this secret—could it really just end with naught but an ignominious snap?

  “They’d planned an overthrow, Carian.” Dagmar offered explanation when it became clear that Franco couldn’t speak. “The Fifty Companions—most of them either duped or woefully misguided—believed the Hundred Mages had been infiltrated by a Sorceress who walked the dark path of elae, called mor’alir. They claimed the High Mage had been using forbidden patterns—dark patterns known as inverteré—to bind others to her will. Many of the Mages were in collusion on this overthrow. They attempted to slay the High Mage and any who stood to protect her.”

  Carian blinked. Then he frowned, perhaps recalling that the Citadel’s High Mage was Isabel van Gelderan. Then he spun a glare at Franco. “Were you really so insanely stupid?”

  Franco pushed a hand over his eyes. He honestly wondered if his head might feel better with a dagger shoved into each temple.

  “Well, what’s the rest of it?” The pirate looked appropriately disgusted.

  “Things somewhat disintegrated from there,” Franco muttered.

  Björn exhaled a measured breath. “Tiern’aval was the site of a massacre long before we unwittingly ripped it from the realm.”

  Dagmar said tightly, “Many innocent Mages fell to Dore’s revolt.”

  Franco thought of the rest of that night and felt ill all over again.

  “I don’t get it,” Carian grumbled. “Alshiba—along with most of the bloody realm—thinks you slaughtered the Hundred Mages, First Lord. Can’t we tell the Alorin Seat the truth? If Niko had a hand in such treason, she should know. Surely then—”

  “It would make no difference now, Carian.” Raine looked grim. “Alshiba would only think we’re trying to defer blame to Niko in order to suit our own aims. She’d never believe such a truth now.”

  Carian threw up his hands. “So what do we do? I suppose you’re about to tell me I can’t just kill him—because you know I want to—”

  “I think we all agree the realm would be better off without Niko van Amstel’s stain upon its mantle,” Raine cut in with uncharacteristic enmity, “but there’s more at stake here than mere vengeance.”

  Dagmar nodded his agreement. “The chain reaction of Niko’s appointment is already casting tremors through the firmament. We have to make haste to counteract events he’s set in motion.”

  “I don’t understand.” Carian flicked discontentedly at his chair arm like a child called to heel. “If you went back to Alorin, Great Master, they would have to stop this. Aren’t there regulations—by the thirteen hells, can’t we appeal to Illume Belliel?”

  “There are statutes, Carian,” Björn said. “Alshiba has disregarded them.” He stood, pushed hands into his pockets and began walking around the circle of chairs. His expression fell into a pensive frown. “Niko couldn’t have accomplished this alone. He’s only ever been the figurehead for smarter men’s ambitions.”

  Dagmar grunted. “We must learn who’s backing Niko and what their ultimate plans are.”

  “As if purloining the Vestal appointment isn’t enough?” Carian complained.

  “Perhaps for Niko,” Björn answered, turning cobalt eyes upon the pirate. “Not for those who’re surely manipulating him. We need to understand their end game.”

  “I still don’t see why I can’t just kill him—end of problem.”

  Raine muttered, “This serpent will just grow another head, Carian.”

  “Niko is our best chance of learning of the larger prize in their sights.” Björn came to a halt behind Dagmar’s chair. He eyed each of the others in turn. “This is a trail laid of water on rock. Without Niko, it evaporates.”

  Franco gritted his teeth. He already suspected what they needed from him. “What would you have me do, my lords?”

  Dagmar’s gaze fell apologetically upon him. “No doubt you’ve guessed that we need you to once again be Niko’s ally, Franco—as odious as that task will no doubt prove for you. Take Carian and attend his celebration. Do whatever you can to learn of his plans and activities—and most of all, do your best to learn anything of those backing him.”

  “Then can I gut him?” Carian asked hopefully.

  “This task holds an added danger,” Raine advised, ignoring the pirate.

  Franco lifted his gaze to meet the Vestal’s.

  Raine’s expression conveyed both concern and apology. “By now, the entire realm will have heard of the destruction of Rethynnea’s Temple of the Vestals.” He exhaled as he added, “And if I know Seth, your names will be unquestionably and contemptuously linked to its fall, and...”

  “And to your notable absence, my lord?” Franco finished.

  Raine nodded.

  Standing behind Dagmar, Björn settled his cobalt gaze unerringly on Carian and Franco. “Information. We need it, you two must collect it.”

  ***

  Carian left his meeting with the Vestals with lightning strikes of disagreement twitching in his lanky frame. He wasn’t used to having to report to so many captains, all of whom thought they ran the ship—his ship. Yet it never occurred to him to set a course that varied from the heading the Great Master had chosen. If Dagmar was allied with Björn van Gelderan, then Carian was too, even if that meant merging his vessel into the armada of an unknown admiral.

  But he didn’t have to be cheery about it.

  Thinking of irascible dispositions, however, reminded him of Gwynnleth, who he hadn’t bothered in a few days, so he went in search of her. Gloating in front of the avieth always improved his mood.

  After looking in all the usual places, he finally spotted her sitting on the roof of one of the palace towers beneath a clearing sky. He made his way to the balcony that circled the tower roof and leaned back to stare up at the near vertical pitch of the slippery slate. He spent a while trying to decide if the joy inherent in bothering Gwynnleth was actually worth the effort of reaching her. As part of this analysis, he peered down over the edge of the balcony, automatically discerning his potential angle of fall. His prospects weren’t that promising; one misstep, and he’d plummet a thousand paces to the palace’s craggy foundation.

  Death by pancake. Joy.

  Sucking on a tooth, Carian turned and assessed the roof again. He’d grown up clambering along rain-slicked masts, weaving in between rigging and lines while all around a storm raged and the ship pitched and hawed from one near-horizontal angle to the next. But this? This was insane.

  Yet there sat the avieth, her slender form perched effortlessly on the sheer tiles, no safer from a fall than he would be.

  If I don’t go up, and that bloody bird finds out that I stood here like this, she’ll make me the butt of her mockery for a century.

  Still…it was a really long way down.

  Finally Carian growled an oath, shrugged out of his boots, jumped to grab the gutter and swung a leg up over the edge. Gaining the tiles on all fours, he paused, feeling the pull of a thousand foot drop in the rapid beating of his heart. He cast an irritable glare up at the avieth, much the wolf eying an offensive o
wl on its perch of safety—and with a similar lack of notice in return. The wind lifted and twisted his wavy hair into wild designs as he climbed then, macaque-like, hand over foot to the very peak of the tower.

  “Winds, birdie, I’ve been hunting for you everywhere.” Carian settled in beside her on the damp tiles, hugged his knees, and noted that his hairy toes were all that stood between his body and a thousand-foot tumble. The stubby appendages seemed unnervingly overmatched.

  Gwynnleth angled him a narrow eye, at last deigning to notice his arrival. “Indeed, Islander? Where were you looking?”

  “Let’s see…” Carian sucked on a tooth. “I checked in the kitchens—you know, in case you’d gotten hungry.” He disentangled his whirling hair from its attempts to strangle him and shook out his head so it flew behind him like a tattered veil instead. Then he grinned as he added, “Plus, there’s this poppet in the bakery who fancies me.”

  Gwynnleth arched a brow to express her infinite disinterest.

  “I also checked the First Lord’s game room, but the blokes gaming today only wanted to play Shari. I can’t fathom their interest in that bloody game. What’s the point of moving a bunch of glass stones from place to place? Trumps is the only game worth wagering on.”

  “I despise your reckless games of chance.”

  “Yeah,” he snorted, looking down again. “You’d rather recklessly gamble with your life.”

  This drew a twitch of a smile.

  The wind caught their hair in a sudden upwards draft, such that both Carian and Gwynnleth’s locks formed undulating black and auburn flames. With much cursing and complaining, Carian gathered his mass of wild waves into a knot behind his head so that only Gwynnleth’s hair remained free to spit and sting him in the face.

  He shoved another snapping end of it away from his mouth, spat and waggled his tongue to free the last of it. “After that, I looked in Mithaiya’s chambers.”

  She eyed him askance. “You looked for me in Mithaiya’s rooms.”

  “You know, just in case her lizardness was in the mood,” and he shrugged his eyebrows saucily. “Sadly, my dragon-love wasn’t there.”

  Gwynnleth arched a dubious brow. “I fail to see where in any part of this you were actually searching for me.”

  “The part where I came out here and looked up.”

  She turned away again wearing an expression of supreme indifference. “So now you’ve found me—miracle of miracles. What do you want?”

  “I just thought you’d want to know that we’re heading back to Alorin.”

  The avieth—damn her—didn’t even twitch a brow at this enticing news. “Who is we?”

  “That Rohre character and me. We’re heading to a party—thought you’d want to join.”

  “Whyever would you think I’d want to participate in such repulsive activity?”

  He glared at her. “Oh, let me see…because it’s in Alorin, maybe? Last I knew you were creaming your linens to get home.”

  She gave him an arch look. “The only thing likely to bring me that sort of pleasure is the sight of my blade across a certain pirate’s throat.”

  Carian grinned lustily. “You can hold your knife to my neck all you like, birdie, so long as you’re riding my cock at the time.”

  Gwynnleth gave him a withering glance—whereupon his bare feet caught her eye, and she frowned. “You have the toes of a yeti.”

  Carian waggled the hairy appendages for her pleasure. “You wouldn’t criticize them if you knew their many talents.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  He shook pieces of flying hair from his eyes. “What’s got your feathers all tizzied up, chickadee? You’re even more snarky than usual.”

  She cast him a critical eye. “A defining aspect of choosing an isolated tower so as to be alone is that one is actually left alone.”

  “I might’ve left you alone in limbo between the worlds.” Carian shoved her hair out of his eyes again and glared at her. “That’s gratitude for you.”

  Gwynnleth pressed her lips into a line and considered him, her tawny-gold eyes unreadable. Finally she made the slightest of shrugs with her shoulders and turned her gaze back to the immense valley spreading before them. Carian admitted it was quite the view. The world appeared larger from atop their tower, a thin spire linking charcoal clouds to the lush, fertile plains, as if a single needle stitch in the vast tapestry that held T’khendar together.

  “The Fourth Vestal told me earlier this morning that you’d be returning to Alorin,” the avieth finally admitted. “He suggested I might accompany you if I so desired.”

  “And?”

  Gwynnleth pried at her thumbnail with her teeth. “I said no.”

  “Shadow take me, why?”

  She peered at him for a long moment with a furrow between her pale ginger brows. “When the Second Vestal took us to T’khendar’s edge, to the valley of unmaking where that creature Rinokh lurks…what did you think?”

  “It was a bloody shock.” When Gwynnleth just watched him, expecting something more profound, perhaps, Carian grumbled, “If you mean what did I think about all of this—” and he held out one hand to the world at large, “let’s just say, I got the picture.”

  The avieth turned and frowned out at the view. “The Fifth Vestal has gone to great lengths to ensure Alorin’s safety, even enduring ages of vilification innocently and unnecessarily. I wouldn’t have believed it without coming here.” She dropped her hands to press against the roof and lifted her gaze to the sky as if searching for something in the clouds. “Seth never will.”

  “So?”

  She spun him a severe look. “We know things for having been here, Islander. Things that as yet must remain unknown to others, and especially to Seth Silverbow, who would take every truth we’ve learned and twist it into a new form of blame. In Seth’s mind, Björn van Gelderan deserves no mercy, no matter how justified his actions might’ve been. If I return…” She shook her head resolutely. “The moment I take the form, Seth will know my mind. I won’t be able to hide this knowledge from him. He’ll use it to harm the Fifth Vestal and anyone who serves him.”

  “So don’t take the form.”

  She grunted. “Another impossibility.”

  “Just because your feathered head can’t conceive of it, chickadee, doesn’t make it impossible. It just makes it difficult. Welcome to the Guild of Hard Knocks—on Jamaii, we call it The Account.”

  Her tawny gaze narrowed. “You’re comparing my natural state of existence to piracy?”

  He shrugged. “You’re an avieth by birth, I’m a pirate by birth…where’s the difference?”

  Gwynnleth glared icily at him.

  Carian was just opening his mouth to begin upon a lecture in support of his point when a raucous cry split the near air. He shoved hands over his ears and glared upwards just as a drachwyr erupted out of the cloud bank and surged past them in a powerful rush of wind. “Bloody screeching!” He leaned to shout after the dragon, “Screw knives into my ears, why don’t you, woman!”

  Gwynnleth watched the soaring dragon with the ache of longing in her gaze.

  The drachwyr banked in a spread of gilded wings and turned toward the crenellated roof of the next tower over. Letting out another cry, which sounded to Carian like a bleating goat mating with a lion—or a hundred such pairings, all crying out at once—the drachwyr thrust back her wings and extended talons to the flat roof. Her wings began shimmering as she alighted, and a blinding sparkle of brilliance followed. This waterfall of light eventually evaporated into the form of a woman in a blue gown.

  “I cannot imagine what she sees in you,” Gwynnleth remarked, eyeing Mithaiya across the way.

  “It’d be my pleasure to give you experiential knowledge, birdie. You need only beg on hands and knees, preferably with your hands tied behind—”

  “Careful you don’t overextend yourself offering your loins to so many women.” Gwynnleth’s tone was flat.

  Carian grinne
d. “Not likely.”

  “Or exaggerate your apparent plethora of skills.”

  He gave her a bigger grin. “Even less likely.”

  Across the way, Mithaiya blew upon her hand, and a fiery streak spread towards them, leaving a wake of luminance. The drachwyr stepped between the crenels of her tower and began walking across the glowing path.

  Gwynnleth grunted. “Subtle isn’t she?”

  Carian cast Mithaiya an appreciative grin. “She likes to make a dramatic entrance.”

  “How well suited you are for each other.”

  “Now, birdie, you needn’t be so petulant. You can join us any time. That would make for a good tale, wouldn’t it? The pirate, the hawk and the dragon...”

  “Wherein the dragon eats the pirate and the hawk flies away.”

  Mithaiya reached their tower, lifted the silk skirt of her cerulean gown and stepped barefoot onto the roof.

  Gwynnleth turned Carian an accusatory glare at the continuing egregious infraction on her solitude.

  “Carian vran Lea, Gwynnleth of Elvior.” Mithaiya gave them both a nod of greeting. “You choose unique places from which to appreciate the First Lord’s wondrous realm.”

  “The sight is so glorious,” Carian replied with eyes only for the exotically beautiful Mithaiya, “it must be viewed from all available angles.”

  She arched a delicate raven eyebrow, and a suggestive smile hinted on her lips. “I did not think there were any angles as yet unexplored.”

  “My lady, you underestimate yourself.”

  Gwynnleth cleared her throat purposefully.

  Mithaiya gave her a curious look.

  “Don’t mind birdie,” Carian remarked. “She’s just ruffled because she can’t return to Alorin and take the form without Seth knowing all about our plans.”

  Mithaiya’s brow furrowed in a little frown. She moved to kneel between Carian and Gwynnleth and placed a gentle hand on the avieth’s arm. “We drachwyr share the intimacy of this sacrifice, Wildling child. It is sometimes necessary, but it never comes easily.”

  Gwynnleth cast her an unfriendly stare.

  Carian tugged on Mithaiya’s skirt. “How was your day, your lizardness? Find any holes to patch in this fair world?”